The UK’s borders should be closed to “all but essential travel” to prevent new strains of Covid spreading, the SNP has said.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, made the plea after warning the UK Government must “act in a timely manner” to respond to the pandemic.

He told the Commons: “Nobody would say that this Prime Minister is one step ahead of tomorrow or acts and shows leadership in dealing with this health pandemic.

“The PM was slow to act in the spring of 2020, slow in the autumn and here again, reacts after the events to the threats that we all face.

“On travel, is the Prime Minister prepared to learn from his Government’s past mistakes?

“Will he consider closing the UK border to all but essential travel to prevent new strains of the virus spreading?”

Boris Johnson replied: “As I said just now, we will make sure that we protect our borders from the readmission of the virus and he has seen what we did already in the case of the South African strain.

“And we’ll bring forward further measures to stop the readmission of the virus.”

The Government is due to set out its plans in the coming days, with the introduction of pre-departure testing expected.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “We are working at pace to develop appropriate measures.”

The spokesman said measures had already been introduced to try and stop cases being imported – such as the quarantine requirement.

But “the global and domestic situation that we are seeing has changed, with increasing levels of coronavirus, so it is important that we take the action we need to ensure that we try and reduce the risk even further,” they added.

The principle of pre-departure testing “will provide for an extra layer of protection against the virus”, the spokesman said.